Film Timbuktu to be Shown--Depicts the Politics of Radicalization

The Department of Language and Literature and the Honors Program are co-sponsoring a showing of the film Timbuktu on Tuesday, September  20 at 7:00 PM in Library MMA.

This Abderrahmane Sissako film was a 2015 Cannes Film Festival official selection and a nominee for the best foreign-language Oscar.  It depicts the takeover of a peaceful rural village by a gang of radical jihadis and the tragedy that ensues.

Dr. Erin Hippolyte, Associate Professor of French and Study Abroad Advisor for Fairmont State, first showed the film in her Francophone Africa class last spring.  “The film is a powerful tool to help students understand the politics of radicalization.  It points up the distinction between ISIS and legitimate Islam, which is so often confused and shows us the strength and resistance of the inhabitants of Timbuktu,” says Hippolyte.

Dr. J. Robert Baker, Director of the Honors Program, notes that “Timbuktu makes distinctions that are important if one is to think critically about the world and crucial to our not collapsing other people into a threat to our ideals.”

The film is free and open to the public.  A discussion will follow the showing.

For further information, please contact Dr. Erin Hippolyte, (304)367-4598 or Erin.Hippolyte@fairmontstate.edu.

Dr. Erin HippolyteHonors Program